Surgical Students show charitable spirit

The humanitarian spirit of the Wits Surgical Students Society was put to good practice earlier this month when the students raised funds for a rehabilitation centre inspired by burn victim Pippie Kruger.

The Society invited members of the Wits community and the public to participate in a five kilometre Fun Run in aid of the community based Centre being built in Ellisras, Limpopo. The project for the centre is being headed up by Anice Kruger, mother of Pippie.

The event, which took place on Wednesday, 13 February 2013 managed to bring in R8000 for the centre, an amount Anice says will go a long way toward covering costs associated with the construction of the Centre.

“Construction costs can soar very quickly beyond what you can imagine, and this donation will come in very handy to ensure we get the best for the children who will be helped through it. It will go a long way to help Pippie and other unfortunate children just like her,” says Anice.

Amongst other amenities, the Centre will have a physiotherapist on call, a gym, physiotherapy room and a warm water pool to assist burn victims in getting the best possible care and rehabilitation.

While the Centre has not officially been named, Anice said she would like it to be called the “Vat my skapie gym” (Take my lamb gym). “A charity organisation, Vat my hand, and the people from the town in Limpopo where we come from, who we refer to as the sheep, raised R100 000 for us. That is how we came up with the unusual name,” says Anice.

About 370 students and other participants showed up in wacky costumes impersonating the theme Tight, bright and white to do their bit for charity and for the fun run around the Education Campus at sunset.

“We were thrilled to be involved in this project and it is wonderful to give back to our community,” says Sule Burger, secretary of the Wits Surgical Students Society.

“We are all about outreach and we learn a lot about our community with projects such as these. Whenever we are presented with such an opportunity, we are just too excited to take it on,” says Burger.

Pippie, who suffered burns to 85% of her body on New Year’s Eve in 2011, has been recovering well since Dr Ridwan Mia, a Wits graduate, made history last year when he and a team of doctors saved the three-year-old’s life by transplanting skin cloned from her own cells in a lab in Boston in the United States.

The medical team led by Mia, performed the surgery on 11 June 2012 in the Garden City Hospital, making it the first reconstructive surgery where cloned skin is used in Africa. Mia studied medicine at the Wits School of Medicine, specialising in plastic and reconstructive surgery.